Knowledge of an Aboriginal language and school outcomes for children and adults

Aboriginal Language and School Outcomes: Investigating the Associations for Young Adults

“…That is, the participants were born in the same time period and exposed to the same events and demographic trends. So, if previous findings (Guèvremont & Kohen, 2012, 2017 of positive associations for children but not for adults were attributable to a cohort effect, the negative findings for adults should not be replicated in the present study with a different cohort. If, on the other hand, negative associations are found between language learning and adult outcomes, this study would provide additional evidence of a differential impact of Aboriginal language learning on children's outcomes as compared to adults' outcomes.…”

“…Furthermore, despite the evidence of Aboriginal language programs reporting positive results for children (Guèvremont & Kohen, 2012;Rosier & Holm, 1980), similar positive results have not been found for adults. Speaking an Aboriginal language has been associated with both a lower likelihood of high school graduation (Hull, 2015;Lamb, 2014;O'Gorman & Pandey, 2015) and a lower likelihood of obtaining post-secondary education (Brade, Duncan, & Sokal, 2003;Hull, 2015).…”

“…Speaking an Aboriginal language has been associated with both a lower likelihood of high school graduation (Hull, 2015;Lamb, 2014;O'Gorman & Pandey, 2015) and a lower likelihood of obtaining post-secondary education (Brade, Duncan, & Sokal, 2003;Hull, 2015). Similarly, Guèvremont and Kohen (2012) found that First Nations adults who spoke an Aboriginal language were less likely to have completed high school, whether they had learned the language in school or not. Yet, this same study found positive results for children using the same population-based dataset, the Aboriginal Peoples Survey (Guèvremont & Kohen, 2012).…”

“…Similarly, Guèvremont and Kohen (2012) found that First Nations adults who spoke an Aboriginal language were less likely to have completed high school, whether they had learned the language in school or not. Yet, this same study found positive results for children using the same population-based dataset, the Aboriginal Peoples Survey (Guèvremont & Kohen, 2012).…”

“…It is possible that associations between school outcomes and learning an Aboriginal language differed for the cohorts of children and adults because each group was born at a different time and was therefore exposed to different demographic and educational societal trends. As an example, our previous study (Guèvremont & Kohen, 2012) showed a positive association between language and school outcomes for children aged 6 to 14 in 2001, but not for a cohort aged 20 to 34 in the same year. The current study allows us to examine the educational outcomes of the 6-to 14-year-old child cohort 11 years later, as an adult cohort, now aged 17 to 25 years, since both the 2001 and the 2012 Aboriginal Peoples Survey included similar content on both speaking an Aboriginal language and being taught the language in school.…”